The Nature of Peace

by Thorstein Veblen

The Nature of Peace contains both a theory of politics and a theory of economics in regard to war. Thorstein Veblen's approach to this topic is at once empirical, instrumental, and matter-of-fact. He poses the question, "What are the terms on which peace at large may hopefully be installed and maintained?" Veblen's quest for peace does not rely on grand forces but rather on various conditions, some propitious and some prohibitive. The regime of peace, according to Veblen, is a function of the pacification of both the dynastic state and the modern state, the class struggle, the control of government by privileged business and other propertied interests, and the workings of the market. War and warlike behavior are matters not only of psychology but of both politics and economics, that is to say, matters of the social system as a whole. Thorstein Veblen's brilliant analysis about the pursuit of perpetual peace is necessary reading material for sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, economists, military specialists, and government officials.

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Thorstein (born 'Torsten') Bunde Veblen was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist. He was famous as a witty critic of capitalism.

Veblen is famous for the idea of "conspicuous consumption". Conspicuous consumption, along with "conspicuous leisure", is performed to demonstrate wealth or mark social status. Veblen explains the concept in his best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Within the history of economic thought, Veblen is considered the leader of the institutional economics movement. Veblen's distinction between "institutions" and "technology" is still called the Veblenian dichotomy by contemporary economists.

As a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, Veblen attacked production for profit. His emphasis on conspicuous consumption greatly influenced the socialist thinkers who sought a non-Marxist critique of capitalism.

Reviews

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found some synchronicity with Carl Schmitt's book "On the Concept of the Political", as these were two treatises written after World War I and Europe was preparing itself for the resumption of hostilities. I quit reading this book when I came to the chapter heading, "On the Elimination of the Unfit" -- more because Goodreads had led me to believe this was a 160-page book and not a 250-page book, than because I was alarmed at reading such a personally harsh and accusatory judgment that I would be tempted to see myself as being named categorically. In this text Veblen makes it clear that he thinks an alliance of Germany and Japan, the two nations he considers to be the least able to cope with modern bourgeois liberal politics and the two countries that most exhibit a feudalistic commitment to politicians they see as a divine sovereignty, were the most problematic in terms of keeping a post-war entente. If only the world had listened to men like John Maynard Keynes and Thorstein Veblen, how many millions of lives would be spared ?

[Jason Goetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vested Interests and the Common Man and The Nature of Peace go hand-in-hand. His main critique in the first is that business succeeds by sabotage, by deliberately restricting the creation of supply so that the capitalist can charge the highest price for an item of consumption. The “kept classes,” which include the government (including all diplomatic posts abroad as well) and those who are reliant upon big business for their livelihood, foster and inculcate this sabotage, and thus they have interests that are clearly at odds with those of the common man.

The common man does not benefit at all from business, in his view, and when international conflict erupts over trade the common man, trained from childhood in patriotism and sacrifice to the homeland, unwittingly goes against his own interest to fight on behalf of the businessmen, resulting in even more costs to his own class. Veblen states explicitly in The Nature of Peace that patriotism is based only on the perception of national prestige and can only be used to fight other nations in attempts to prove the superiority of one nation over another; and he advocates in the book a dissolution of national establishments in favor of universal bonds of humanity. This abuse of patriotism is especially fostered when the government is an Imperial monarchy, as in the cases of Germany and Japan, and at odds with democratic opponents like the United States and United Kingdom; he says outright that peace cannot be kept between such opponents except on the disestablishment of one or the other forms of government and complete subversion of its value system (which, he notes, takes time to eradicate through disuse). He writes this in 1917, prior to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and within twenty years the peace that was created but without dissolution of culture at the Treaty was shattered, confirming his prediction. His solution is idealistic, and there is reason behind his opinion, but it is a bit wild.

What’s most intriguing about The Nature of Peace, in my opinion, is its place in the context of texts on peace. My class on classic essays has been reading the peace essays for the last three weeks—An Essay Towards the Present and Future State of Europe by William Penn, A Lasting Peace by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Perpetual Peace by Immanuel Kant—and it is clear that over the course of two and a half centuries the problem, despite the desperate attempts of intellectuals and philanthropists to annihilate it, got continually worse. Each of their attempts was built on fostering common ideals of justice and interest. Veblen’s philosophy claims that the conceptions of justice and interest held by those who would be actively trying to establish the peace are corrupt and therefore irreconcilable with their desired end, so the process is worthless the whole way through. And he may well be right.

I have read more book-length works of Veblen than of any other author, fiction or nonfiction, except Mark Twain and Thomas Sowell (I have read six by each of the three authors). He is a strange figure to have captured my attention, and it’s just as likely that I’ve read them because they are all short. Personally I disagree with him, and I find his use of language to be horrible—he violates just about every rule set forth in Orwell’s great essay, “Politics and the English Language,” uses unnecessarily long words and is also repetitive. But he has great ideas, and he is the perfect writer to use as a teacher. So I am teaching The Vested Interests and the Common Man this winter.

[David Robertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language is, as always with Veblen, tough but this one is more readable than others. His argument was, at the time, infuriating- no wonder he was a ladies man.